


Nicotine

by dyingpoet



Series: Sprace one shots [29]
Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Crushes, M/M, Modern Era, Smoking, Withdrawal, dont smoke kids!!! don't make race's mistakes!!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-10-31 21:04:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17856932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dyingpoet/pseuds/dyingpoet
Summary: Race is trying to quit smoking, and it definitely isn't because of a guy





	Nicotine

**Author's Note:**

> ive wanted to write this fic for ages lets gooooo

Race knew what year it was, he could read all the warnings and watch all the strangely aggressive advertisements telling people they would die horrible deaths if they took up smoking. He knew all of this, and yet ignored most of it, because if he was being completely honest, he had a shit job, and if he wanted a smoke after work he thought he deserved that. 

Anyway nobody was there to judge him, he only smoked on the balcony, and Davey and Jack either couldn’t smell it, or pretended not to. It was a good situation.

Race considered this, taking a deep drag, he leaned his elbows on the railing, taking a second to look down the four floors to the street before exhaling, smoke mixing with the frozen breath that came with November in New York. He could quit whenever he wanted anyway, he just didn’t want to right then. 

As he slowly worked his way down the rest of the cigarette he ran through the day in his head. Class was fine, it was art history, he’d needed an elective credit and Jack had begged him to take it with him. Turns out, Race was actually better at art history than the fine art major, which was starting to get at Jack; that was fun. 

Work was work, he’d answered phones for about seven hours and then stole a pizza from the back, it was still sitting in the kitchen actually.

While this riveting thought process was, well, progressing, the cigarette had burned down, and a sharp burn on his fingertip jerked him back to reality. 

“Fuck,” he hissed, dropping the butt off the edge of the balcony. He shook his hand to try and get the sting out of it, when a pretty impressive curse echoed back at him from below.

Looking down, he saw someone staring up at him from the balcony below his. He was holding the cigarette butt, which was a pretty bad sign to begin with, and then shouted something up at Race. Race, who was concentrating way too hard on his burnt finger and they way the guy  _ looked _ to hear whatever he’d said. 

“What?” he asked, leaning a bit farther over the railing to stare down.

The guy rolled his eyes and thrusted the cigarette butt in his hand upward. “This. Stop this, I’m sick of these landing on my balcony from you.”

“Oh, I, uh,” Race stuttered out. He genuinely hadn’t realized they hadn’t been hitting the street, and he’d lived in this apartment for months. “I’m sorry? I didn’t know they weren’t going down to the street.”

“Why’s littering any better?” the guy challenged. He was leaning further over his railing now and Race couldn’t tell whether there was a lilt at the end of the question or not. He might be kidding, he might be an environmentalist, who could tell. “Um-”

He cocked his head and Race was seventy five percent sure he was fucking with him now. “Smoking’s bad for you, y’know.”

“I didn’t know that actually,” Race drawled, sarcastic. “My doctor prescribed them for my asthma, they’re a miracle cure.”

The guy, the lack of a name was getting annoying, ducked his head and Race was pretty sure he was smiling. “Yeah, okay, whatever. Just cut it out with throwing them down here? I got people that think I smoke now.”

He started to walk back, halfway disappearing under the overhang into his own apartment when Race leaned further over his railing. Jack had accused him of becoming overly attached to people, but he disagreed, this guy seemed, and admittedly looked, nice. 

“Hey, wait!”

The guy stopped and turned back. “Yeah?”

He was staring up at Race and honestly his eyes were really brown and Race forgot what he was going to say for a second. “Do you, uh, wanna come up, or something? I feel bad for littering on your stuff-”

“I don’t go out with nameless strangers,” the guy quipped. He was still holding the cigarette butt, Race noticed. 

“My name’s Race,” he offered, rushing to continue when the guy cocked his head. “That’s not my real name but that’s what everyone calls me.”

The guy took a pause, and laughed to himself a bit before going, “Well if we’re using nicknames, I’m Spot then.”

Race grinned, “See, Race and Spot, both names with four letters.”

“What does that mean?”

“Something,” Race said with a shrug, “and, it isn’t going  _ out _ , it’s going  _ up _ .”

Spot chuckled again and he Race felt his chest warm up. It was shut down quickly, though. 

“Even so,” he said lightly, “I don’t go out  _ or _ up with smokers, nothing personal.”

Race’s face fell, and he looked down, kicking at the balcony floor. “Oh, yeah, that’s fair.”

“It’s really not personal,” Spot continued, leaning out further, “my parents used to smoke and I hated it, talk to me if you quit, though.”

Perking up at that, Race looked up. “Yeah?”

Spot grinned. “Yeah.”

He left then and Race bit his lip, staring down at the street below him. He could quit, couldn’t he? Jack and Davey would be happy, probably not that it was over a  _ guy _ , but still. And it wasn’t  _ only _ because Spot, smoking was bad. It wasn’t because of Spot. It wasn’t.

* * *

 

“Oh my god, this is  _ totally _ because of that guy.”

“No it’s not,” Race retorted, and from his place on Jack’s couch he placed a hand over his heart. “Smoking is bad, I’m doing this for myself and my lungs.”

Jack sat down on the other end of the couch and leaned back, eyes narrowed. “So what’s the significance then? Why now?”

“I got a cough yesterday,” Race said innocently, picking at his nail beds to avoid the look Jack was giving him, “it was traumatic.”

“I bet it was-”

He got halfway through the sentence when Davey burst through the door, grocery bag in hand. Race groaned and laid back on the couch, throwing a hand over his eyes. 

See, right after he’d come into Davey and Jack’s apartment he’d loudly announced that he was going to quit smoking. Jack had been suspicious, still was, but Davey had been  _ ecstatic _ , he ran out of the apartment to get “supplies” before Race could tell him the story about Spot and the cigarette butt. Not that there was anything to tell, he was quitting for himself, that was all. 

“Okay,” he said, making his way over to Jack and Race, “so first of all, you’ve committed to this and now I’ll be on your back until you see it through.”

Race sat up to protest and yelped when Davey threw a box at his face, his mouth dropping open when he read the name on it. 

“A nicotine patch? No, no way,” he said, throwing the box back at Davey and crossing his arms. “I don’t need a crutch, I’m not even that dependent on it.”

“Addicted is the word you’re looking for,” Jack cut in. Race glared. 

Davey was relatively undeterred, and moved to sit down between Jack and Race, pulling other nicotine supplements out of the bag eagerly. “I doubt that, and I heard that if you get those hypnosis tapes and listen to them at night-”

“Nope,” Race said. Davey was looking at him with that look he usually reserved for a sleep deprived Jack, but he didn’t care. “I don’t need all this extra stuff, I’m fine, and hypnosis is fake anyway.”

Davey rolled his eyes while Jack nodded seriously.

“Whatever, you don’t have to take any of this stuff now, but it’s here,” he said, and honestly Race was starting to feel a little bit guilty over how excited he was for this. Not that his intentions weren’t entirely pure, they were, but a disappointed Davey was worse than a disappointed Jack, which was saying something. 

He cleared his throat. “Well, don’t get your hopes up too high, it might not work.”

Davey opened his mouth, looking indignant, when Jack cut him off. 

“Oh it’ll work,” he said, “he’s doing it for a guy after all.”

“ _ What _ ?”

“It is  _ not _ about the guy.”

* * *

 

Yeah, it was definitely about the guy, Race was in enough pain to admit that at this point. He was sitting on the balcony, something Davey said about confronting the place that enabled him, rehab sounding stuff, and he was probably dying.

It had been two days since he’d last smoked, and he’d adamantly refused to take any of Davey’s nicotine gum, or ‘quitters gum’ as he’d come to call it, and he’d die before he admitted regretting that decision. 

He took a deep inhale, trying to focus on the cold pumping into his lungs, but fell into a coughing fit a second later. 

From below, there came a soft, “You okay?”

Race composed himself and gripped the railing tighter; his hands were shaking and he could at least try and make an effort to look less like shit. When he looked down Spot’s head was craned over the balcony and it was cocked to the side so that his hair was sort of all over the place. Yeah, he really needed to quit.

“Fantastic,” Race called down, “haven’t smoked in two days.”

Spot gaped then and raised his eyebrows. “Woah, you’re actually trying to quit?”

Race nodded, head spinning a bit from the motion. “Yep, that’s what you said right? You won’t go out with smokers?”

“I did say that,” Spot said carefully. He was studying Race for a few seconds who was suddenly wishing he’d made more of an effort to look less deathly ill. “I didn’t think you’d actually quit.”

“Oh yeah, it’s easy too, never felt better, don’t know what all that addiction stuff we had to learn about in high school was on.”

Race was smiling weakly up, and from the thin layer of sweat coating, well, pretty much his whole body, and the way his head was pounding, he probably looked like a liar right then. 

Spot chuckled though, and propped himself up on the railing a bit more. “Lying is sort of a deal breaker too,” he said, but there was a teasing tone in his voice when he said it, and Race let his shoulders sag a little to get more comfortable.

“You’re awful picky for a twenty something year old guy living alone.”

“Says the one who asked out the first person to yell at him for littering.”

Race laughed a little, pained though, the rolling in his stomach was protesting every action that wasn’t smoking right about then. And Spot must have sensed that, because he got a serious look on his face for a few seconds before saying anything else. 

“Are you sure you’re gonna be okay by yourself?” he asked. He looked genuinely concerned, and Race was so flustered from that itself, and combined with not really knowing the answer to his question, he must have taken too long of a pause because Spot shook his head and turned to leave the balcony. 

“I’ll be up in an hour.”

Race was left nauseous and in shock.

* * *

 

It was more like fifty five minutes, not that Race had been paying attention, when he heard a knock on his front door. He’d sort of figured Spot knew he was sick and pathetic so he was laying on the couch with a blanket, but he had showered and changed clothes and maybe fixed his hair a little but it wasn’t a whole thing. 

“It’s open,” he called, tilting his head back when the door clicked open to reveal Spot, who was somewhat shorter than Race had been able to tell from a floor up, carrying a plate of something. “Don’t rob me please.”

“Wouldn’t be very hard,” Spot mused, kicking off his shoes and shutting the door behind him. He looked around Race’s apartment while he made his way toward the couch; it was semi-presentable for once. “Do you always leave the door unlocked?” 

Race shrugged. “Only when I know people are bringing me food.”

Spot chuckled again and sat down on the couch next to race, putting his plate, still covered down on the table in front of them. “Not that you had any way of knowing I was bringing you food-”

“Thin floors,” Race cut off happily. Whatever it was on the plate smelled amazing, and he sat up, drumming his hands on his knees eagerly. “What is it?”

He took out two forks from a little plastic bag he’d brought and handed Race one. “It’s called arroz con gandules, it’s Puerto Rican rice,” he said, “it has beans and pork in it, and I had some left over so I reheated it for you.”

Race had already started eating, he figured he might as well act like his normal self, Spot was seeing him at a pretty vulnerable place already. And damn was the rice  _ good _ . 

“Oh my god,” he moaned, eyes closed, “this is so fucking good.”

When he opened his eyes again Spot was smiling lightly, eating himself. “You’re right.”

“Did you make it yourself?”

“No,” Spot laughed out, more so when he saw Race’s confused expression. “My abuela did, and she’d kill me if I took credit for it, too.”

Race smiled at that. “Sounds like my older brother.”

Spot tilted his head, a habit, Race noticed, and he continued. 

“Yeah, he makes this amazing tomato sauce, even though he’s not even the Italian one, and won’t tell anyone the recipe, he’s like a grandmother I swear.”

Race’s head was definitely still pounding but Spot brightened at the story, and he fought the urge to groan in pain. 

“So you’re Italian then?” Spot asked, continuing when Race nodded, “And he’s not?”

Race nodded again through a mouthful of the rice, swallowing before answering, “Yeah he’s my foster brother, so we’re not technically related but we’d lived together for like ten years in the same foster home before we aged out.”

“That’s cool,” Spot said, “I have a huge family, it’s nice to have that sort of family stuff.”

Race grinned then, and Spot bumped his shoulder. 

“What?”

Shaking his head, Race turned his head and tried to bite back his smile. “No, it’s just, this is a very ‘first date’ discussion.”

He laughed outright when Spot rolled his eyes and took another big bite of rice. 

“Whatever,” he said, leaning back on the couch, “you can take your pity first date.”

“So it is a first date?”

Spot shrugged, a smile breaking through his expressionless facade after a second. “I guess you’re not  _ really  _ a smoker anymore.”

And Race, despite the dull ache in his head, smiled right back. “I guess I’m not.”

**Author's Note:**

> i actually like how this one turned out, i hope yall did too!!!
> 
> hmu with kudos/comments if you can because they are the only thing motivating me At This Point


End file.
